2 out of 5

Finally making my way through the Guinea Pig series, it’s turning out to be a strange mixed bag.  It’s hard to piece together legit info about these films that isn’t clouded by gorehound response to the initial entries, or derailed by conversation about Charlie Sheen.  I know that, working at Tower, I would examine the boxes frequently, knowing the series’ reputation, and just assume, based on the pictures and descriptions, that all of these things were torture fests.  But that’s really only number 1, and even that turned out to be oddly more sterile than I would’ve imagined.  #2 was closer to the spirit of what I guessed all these films would be, but that one was “enlivened” by its overall silliness.  (Can I call it that?)  3 and 4 are the odd ones out, being dumb slapsticky affairs.  So what of #5?  According to some accounts I’ve read, #5 was an attempt to get back more to the “spirit” of the original series.

Does it?

You know, initially, I was pretty impressed.  The plotting, the camera angles used – they all spoke of more professionalism than anything that had come before, and the initial doses of gore looked good and were fairly original (not just chopping someone up), so it seemed like the series WAS doing something new, trying to combine the gore ethics with an actual movie (lord forbid), which can be noted in this entry’s longer runtime than the average 40 something minutes.

But it falls apart.  There’s something here about a scientist needing fresh bodies to experiment on to cure his sister’s disease, and those experiments involve a lot of pulling out of eyes and clipping sensors to tendrils on the body.  But the bodies JUST AREN’T FRESH ENOUGH!  When the benefactor who has been providing these “guinea pigs” (cute) shows up, demanding payment, well, our scientist may have found a fresh source of flesh after all…

It’s not a bad set up, and its a nice switch-up to the style of violence, as it allows our makers to get weird with it and not just attempt to shock.  Unfortunately, the prosthetics aren’t as up to the task as previous offerings, and maybe the lack of experience with scripting wasn’t hiding some secret skill, as there are massive gaps in logic and sense here.  Some of it I was surprised by – things that an audience would normally need explained they just skip through.  You totally get it, but you’re expecting that movie cue to confirm your suspicions.  But then other things, well, I guess they got exhausted writing.

So it’s in line with the other GP’s then, some aspects elevating it above being complete trash, but not nearly enough to merit a recommendation.  Watched without reference to the series, this entry would probably be one star, but its unique camera angles, the music, and yeah, the acting, are all so out of place with what’s come before that it gets a nudge.